Erosion Control

[ncboy34]

I am trying to figure out what to do around my water troughs and the barn where it is a high use area. It is getting to be a muddy mess. My current idea is to get it dried out, put down some filter cloth (maybe 10x10 pad) and put crush and run gravel over it to help with the water troughs. I am still not sure about the barn since this would be alot of gravel. Any ideas on good erosion control. It is getting really bad in some areas around the barn as far as mud goes. Hard to work cattle and move around myself. What have yall found that works

 

[tsmaxx47]

sand; but that is a continuing process

 

[hillrancher]

Take out the mud and place french drains and 3in. stone. It is a little rough until it gets packed.

 

[novatech]

I used crushed limestone (for a customer) below and around the water tank with very good slope. The pad was about a foot thick and 24' diameter. That was 12 years ago and it still looks good.
Make sure that what ever you do includes what is below the trough. Otherwise the water goes around the edges of the trough and under the whatever you put on top of the mud. The makes for the underlayment to remain wet and and cause the topping to fail. You may want to add dehydrated lime to the mud and compact it before any topping is put on. This will dry it up and stabilize it. Lime without a topping is useless an can actually burn the feet of the cattle. Compaction and drainage of the topping are key issues.

 

[backhoeboogie]

Do you have any areas that are more resistant to mud?

I am hauling my hale bales a little farther to put them on rocky limestone outcrops. Would rather put them elsewhere but it has rained a lot this week. Poop has gotten deep around the cradles too

 

[Animal Track Farm]

I put down the cloth like they use on construction sites and then crusher-run gravel on my water ramps to the creek. It has worked well. This is what the soil and water people reconmended.

 

[VCC]

We used #2 road base materials (crushed rock, sand, fines and gravel mix) we removed some of the more suspect soil, then graded the area to slope away from the troughs and alley ways, put down 6" of the base material and then compacted it. As long as you slope it so water does not sit on it will last forever. I think I paid $10 a yard, delivered.
10 yards will cover about 24*24 area @ 6'' deep.
I made the kids wash rack floor out of the same material but I raked cement in the top 2 inches, wet it down and viber-plated it. Lasted 5 years no problem, rinsing calves 2 times a day for 3 months strait. (It is still there just not using it for much now)